LED Glowies

Written by Josh

On pp. 22–23 of UNBORED, we offer instructions on making LED “glowies.” Which are LEDs attached via electrical tape to 3V lithium batteries. The photos (taken in August 2011) accompanying the article show my nieces Haley and Ella.

Click on image for larger version

My wonderful niece Liza was there, too, but due to space constraints, her photo didn’t make it into the book. Sorry, Liza! Here she is, making an LED glowie…

Liza makes a glowie

And here are my sons, too.

Max

Sam

The five cousins then taped rare-earth magnets onto the glowies, transforming them into “throwies.” We took a lot of photos of the throwies in action but they didn’t come out well, because it was dark outside.

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Here’s a neat video of LED throwies — which were invented by a group called the Graffiti Research Lab — in action. UNBORED didn’t make this video, by the way. We just enjoy it.

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In the fall and winter of 2012, as Elizabeth and I did bookstore events for UNBORED, LED glowies and throwies were a huge hit…